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History of Japanese Art

Summary

Published jointly by Prentice Hall and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., this second edition of the comprehensive history of Japanese art from 10,500 B.C.E. now extends beyond 1945, tying together more closely the development of all the media within a well-articulated historical and social context.Features a comprehensive survey of Japanese art and culture, now with 67 new color and 52 new black and white illustrations including other art forms such as calligraphy, lacquer, metalwares, ceramics, and textiles.For art enthusiasts interested in far eastern art.

Decline into Perpetual Civil War: The Nambokucho and Muromachi Periods

Rakucha Rakugai

Decorative and Applied Arts

Armor and Lacquerware

Textiles

Ceramics

Literary and Calligraphic Arts of the Imperial Court

Emakimono of the Medieval Period

The Rebuilding of Todaiji and Kofukuji

The Kei School of Sc

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

One of Japan's defining features is that for much of its history it has successfully maintained itself as a world apart. This has provided Japanese culture with a kind of hothouse environment where the influx of outside influences could be regulated in a way that few of its neighbors could ever hope to achieve. Yet, where this control might have produced an art and culture both stale and monotonous, the particular dynamism of the Japanese character has instead fostered a flowering of what seems a limitless variety of rare and beautiful blooms. Because of this profusion, Japanese art and culture has enjoyed an immense popularity in the West since the country opened its doors to the outside world in the mid-nineteenth century. Japanese art has had a not inconsiderable impact on Western art forms of the last century and a half, and Japanese artists and architects today stand at the forefront of developments on the world stage. Perhaps because it is so easy to become engrossed in just one aspect of Japan's cultural heritage, there have been surprisingly few publications to attempt a synthesis of the entirety of Japan's long and distinguished art history. When in 1993 Penelope Mason wrote the first edition ofHistory of Japanese Art,was the first such volume in thirty years to chart a detailed overview of the subject. The present, revised edition builds on Mason's massive achievement, extending the book's coverage of Japanese art beyond 1945 and introducing new discoveries in both archaeology and scholarship. The new edition also brings into the discussion other art forms left largely or entirely uncovered in the book's original remit. Among these are calligraphy, ceramics, lacquerware, metalware, and textiles. Finally, there has been an attempt to tie together more closely the development of these different art forms within a well-articulated historical and social context, so that the student might better grasp the distinct, but complex evolution of Japanese aesthetics. The first step towards such an understanding, however, rests in the knowledge of a few basic principles of the culture. As this book is intended for the beginning student, the following explanations should provide the necessary grounding. Japanese Language Although the fundamental structure of Japan's spoken languages was probably set some time within the pre- or proto-historic periods, it was not until the seventh century CE that the Japanese people actually began formulating their own written language. Before this time, they used the Chinese language for all affairs of letters. The great flexibility of the Chinese system of ideographs--or characters--is that they represent ideas or concepts and can therefore be recognized by the speakers of any number of languages, each of whom can pronounce the word for any particular idea or concept according to his or her own linguistic custom. At first, therefore, the Japanese written language was a simple appropriation of Chinese characters, known askanji,and these still form its basis.Kanjican be read in two different ways. There is theonreading of a character, which is an approximation of its standard Chinese pronunciation at the time the character entered the Japanese vocabulary--not unusually around the seventh century. There is also thekunreading, in which the character is pronounced according to its equivalent in Japan's spoken language. For example, for thekanjifor "temple", the on (or Chinese) reading is "ji," while thekun(or Japanese) reading is "tera" or "dera." As the language developed, the Japanese came to play with theseonandkunreadings, using them to give different nuances to a name or term. In the case of the word "temple," the first Japanese Buddhist temples were often given names ending with "dera," but when these Japanese-style names went out of fashion, they were r